


Roan and the City

by Ghelik



Series: The 100 Fics [28]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Culture Shock, F/M, Grounder Culture, Pop Culture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-10-30 10:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10875306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: Roan didn’t have any experience with death, for obvious reasons. He had been wounded – badly so – many times in his life, but, obviously, death was a first for him. All his life he had been taught that once he died if he died a good death, he would go to the feasting halls of his Ancestors. He had always hoped there would be horses there. He liked horses.What he didn’t expect was to blink and be standing in a room, surrounded by those beastly contraptions skaikru calls rovers, music blasting around him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Look at that, another multichapter ice mechanic fic. Because I don't have enough to do with just the one.
> 
> Anyway, this is a pitch. Let me know if you'd be interested in a little bit more of Roan suddenly confronted with pre-apocalyptic!skaikru way of life.

Roan was about to die and he knew it: could feel the blood oozing through half a dozen stab wounds, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t fight the hand pushing his head into the fountain, his skin burned with the poison in the water. He would die and that was it. The fate of his people will be sealed.

 

The last thought of his pain-addled brain was spared for his half-sister. He had to believe she would pull through. She was a survivor. She would find a way to ride out Praim Faya and if not… Well, then they would see each other soon enough.

 

Roan didn’t have any experience with death, for obvious reasons. He had been wounded – badly – many times in his life, but, obviously, death was a first for him. All his life he had been taught that once he died if he died a good death, he would go to the feasting halls of his Ancestors. He had always hoped there would be horses there. He liked horses.

 

He had expected it to look like the Summer Palace: big and full of sunshine, huge windows opening to the rolling Hosh Daun Plana Hills. The air in the palace always smelled of wildflowers and honey. He had expected to wake up fully restored, probably rolling out of bed. A beautiful woman at his side would’ve been a nice touch.

 

What he didn’t expect was to blink and be standing in a room, surrounded by those beastly contraptions skaikru calls rovers, music blasting around him, so loudly he can feel it through the soles of his boots and up to his teeth. He can still feel the pain from his wounds, but when he looks down his leathers are dry of blood. Carefully Roan touches his face: the skin is tender, like newly healed tissue but, other than that, seems to have healed.

 

“Who the fuck are you?”

 

In the doorway into the room of the sleeping rovers stands none other than Raven Reyes, Fayalida kom Skaikru, a heavy-looking silver tool in one hand. An afterlife with Raven in it?He can totally get used to this weird place.

 

“You know who I am, Raven.” He smiles at her, but instead of smoothing out, her scowl just increases.

 

“No. I Don’t. How do you know my name?” Roan blinks at her as suspicion starts to creep into her scowl. “Did Wick and Jasper put you up to this?”

 

“I don’t know any…”

 

But she isn’t listening, looking around the room and calling “All right, boys! Very funny!” instead.

 

From the room behind her comes a soft crash and a young man with curly blond hair and a small moustache appears at her back. He looks at Roan with a frown. “What is a Viking doing in our workshop?”

 

Raven turns to him, eyes narrowed.

  
“You tell me.”

 

“How am I supposed to know? I just got here.”

 

The way the newcomer touches Raven’s elbow and smiles down at her makes something beneath Roan’s skin itch, his hand clenches around the hilt of his sword and he has to sheath it before he does something stupid.

 

Raven rolls her eyes at the blonde man and turns back to Roan. “Ok, whatever. Whoever put you up to this, it’s not working.” She limps past him and pushes a button by the wall to his left, the whole section opens up like a maw. What lies behind it takes his breath away:

 

The noise is deafening, louder even than the music; sun shines blindingly off glass buildings so tall they make the Tower in Polis look like a shrub; a line of skaikru vehicles honk and growl past the open door to Raven’s dwelling; bracketing the rovers, rivers of people stream by, talking to themselves, carrying bags, running with cables sticking out of their ears, a thousand different shapes in a thousand different colors.

 

Roan is very glad when the darkness takes him again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank so much for all the comments and kudos ^^  
> Here's an extra long chapter as thanks

This time he wakes laying on his back, a musty old blanket that smells like the containers they had to bring to the island draped over him.

 

The king blinks his eyes open to find Wanheda staring down at him with a small unsure smile on her face.

 

“Hey, there. How are you feeling?”

 

“What are you doing here?” His words come harsher than he intended as he pushes up from the lumpy couch. He’s in a messy office, illuminated by harsh white overhead lights. There’s a desk hidden beneath piles of tools, binders and unidentifiable metallic parts; a frail old bookcase leans heavily against the wall, the shelves curved under the weight of books and yet more metallic parts.

 

Clarke bristles.

 

“I came to pick up my moped” Clarke answers defensively. “Raven asked me to take a look at you because you had passed out. I guess you’re all right now.” She stands up, and he feels like a heel for snapping at her.

 

“I am sorry, Clarke” Roan rubs his hands over his face. “The afterlife seems…”

 

“How do you know my name?” she interrupts. When the king looks at her, she’s tense like a bowstring.

 

He frowns. Why do the people in his afterlife don’t remember him? More importantly: why are they here?

 

The truth crashes on him like a punch to the gut. “Luna won the Conclave.”

 

And if that is so, then all of the humankind was doomed, so they’re all dead. But he died first. Why is he only now waking up?

 

“Who is Luna?”

 

“What Conclave?”, that is Raven, who he hadn’t noticed sitting by the desk, a familiar-looking leather bag open on her knees.

 

“The Conclave to decide who got to stay inside the bunker during Praimfaya.” The king studies their faces as they share a dubious look.

 

“Is there someone we can call to pick you up?”

 

He clears his throat.

 

It doesn’t take a genius to see they are thinking he’s deranged and being considered a madman is dangerous, especially in an unfamiliar place, without allies or friends. He needs to gather knowledge of this land, needs to pass as one of them. Or – ideally – find a way to get himself out of the Skaikru-afterlife and into an Azgedan one. If that is even possible.

 

He stands up, and the two women take a cautious step back. He tries for a small, inoffensive smile. At over six feet tall, with his brands and sword strapped to his side he knows he doesn’t give – as skaikru would put it - an “inoffensive vibe,” but maybe he gets points for effort.

 

“Sorry for the misunderstanding. I’ll be leaving now.”

 

He walks towards the door, praying the Great Spirits will give him a break.

 

“Wait!”

 

Roan turns and holds himself very still, not letting his face show how relieved he is. “Yes?”

 

Maybe they’ve remembered him?

 

“This is yours,” Raven points at the leather bag. He takes it, careful not to make any sudden movements that would spook the skaikru. The top flap of the bag has been painted with the traditional runes for the afterlife.

 

This is his Travel Pack. He swallows the sudden urge to curl down and cry his own death. “Thank you for your hospitality.” He says as an afterthought when he’s reached the door. “I am sorry I couldn’t be a better guest.”

 

The two women share another look but no one stops him this time, and in just a few dozen steps he’s swept by the current of humans walking down the skaikru city’s streets.

 

Roan walks away from Raven’s dwelling, feeling an increasing sense of unease. He pats the small bundle of wooden beads in his coat pocket, their weight slightly reassuring.

 

Something at least is.

 

Roan is not a cowardly man, he knows. But walking among all these strangely clad skaikru makes his skin crawl, his hands itch to unsheathe his sword. It seems as if, in the blink of an eye, he’s gone back to being in exile surrounded by enemies.

 

He needs some peace and quiet to think and regroup, decide what to do next.

 

Roan follows one of the streams of people, looking discreetly at everyone to learn. The signs are easy enough: every so often, when the growling line of vehicles needs to turn, the river of people will be prompted to stop at red lights. After a moment the red light goes off, and a green one burst to life and people can continue.

 

With the rovers to his left and the freakishly tall buildings to his right, he learns that people instinctively walk on the right of their street, where they can be bombarded by a milliard of flashing lights, bold-lettered words, and noises.

 

How can people live like this? He's spent a lot of time in some of the biggest cities between the Wastelands to the Big Waters, but in this one there must be more people than in all the cities he's been before combined. He feels trapped like a pig in a pen, the air smells funny and is extremely thin, like on the top of the Shaun Daun Plana Hills.

 

His heart swells when he sees the small patch of trees, and he has to restrain himself not to break into a run like some over-eager child. He steps out of the fumes and the crowd and onto a dirt-packed road that snakes across a green field and into the patch of trees.

 

It doesn't look like a forest, but it's the closest he's seen since he got here and he can feel himself relaxing infinitesimally. He walks up a gentle slope that ends in a round pagoda. People are lying around in the sun like discarded clothes. The pagoda is littered with empty bottles and weird envelopes. He sits down on a bench beneath the wooden roof and takes stock of his traveling pack:

 

There's small pouch with golden beads and a few jewels, dried meat and a whetstone, a flint and a small bottle of oil. There's a change of clothes, a folded wool cloak, and his fur blanket rolled so tightly it fits comfortably on the bottom. The fur so soft it feels like butter between his fingers. In one of the pack's pockets, he finds a box with Azgedan arrowheads and three bowstrings. In another, his writing supplies: a small leather-bound sketchbook and a metallic box with coal-pens, a carefully crafted feather he got from his brother for his tenth birthday, and his mothers' seal. A copy of his favorite book has found its way there, too. All the pages yellowed and worn with time and his constant thumbing through them. He buries his nose to breathe the familiar scent. His heart clenching

 

Someone took the time to pack his travel bag, find his body in Polis and give it a proper burial. For that he gives Thanks.

 

Roan spends his day sitting cross-legged in the pagoda watching these strange people come and go and rolling the string of beads thoughtfully between his fingers.

The air is somewhat easier to breathe when night falls. It’s still thick and smells awful, but the absence of sun makes it cooler at least.

 

It’s maybe three hours after sundown that the two skaikru soldiers come up to him. They wear blue jackets with insignias and small-brimmed hats even though these do nothing to protect their faces or make them seem intimidating – quite the contrary. Instead of broadswords or battle-axes, they carry small black guns like Clarke’s ‘ _handgun_.'

 

They look him up and down with matching frowns, hands hooked on the holsters of their guns.

 

“Good evening,” says the small, plump one with the roundish face. How is this a guard? He doesn’t look like he could hold his own in a fight. “Shouldn’t you be home by now, buddy?”

 

Roan knows what happened to _splita_ on Lexa’s land. He knows what happened to criminals in Skaikru land. He’s already died once this day, he doesn’t intend to die a second time, so he needs to tread carefully now.

 

“I’m afraid I got lost,” he says with as much Az-accent as he can force into his warrior-speak. Better let them think he’s a visitor than an intruder. “I was waiting for my friend to come fetch me.”

 

The young warrior looks dubiously at the fat one, who narrows his small porky eyes at Roan. “Your friend, who?”

 

“Lady Clarke Griffin” he enunciates carefully, least these two idiots don’t understand him; surely they now their leader’s daughter by name as well as by rank.

 

The two soldiers exchange a look. “Isn’t that Blake’s girl?” asks the younger one. The eyes of the fat one are nearly invisible slits by now. “Yeah.” He takes a prowling step towards Roan. “Why don’t you come with us to the station and we’ll see if Clarke knows you, mister?”

 

The man’s hand is still deliberately poised on his gun. He’s itching to shoot him for some reason that eludes him, and so he nods with a grateful smile “Mochof!” he says in trig as he stands to his full height and hangs his bag from his shoulder. “Thank you. You’re most kind.”

 

The two men step back, but after a moment of awkward shuffling from the young one and a hard staring down from the other, the three of them start their way out of the woods and into the dark city.

 

The ride on the warrior’s rover is as terrifying as the one to Becca’s island was, if not as eventful.

 

He’s seated in the back, behind a flimsy-looking grid separating him from the guards – which is better than a bag over his head, so he’ll take the grate – on a dirty and cracked seat that’s most definitely not leather. The interior smells distinctly of alcohol and piss and something he can’t identify, but that has a distinctive acid tang to it and seems to try to hide all the other smells with its stench.

Roan uses the time to look through the windows. He’s in the river of Rovers now, watching the river of people flowing around him. There aren’t that many people on the streets now. The women prancing around are scantly clad in impractical skirts and painful-looking shoes that can’t offer any sort of real protection or – you know – footing. The men wander around in undershirts with incomprehensible messages printed across their chests. They gather around doorways and beneath brightly lit signs, laughing and shouting in an unruly mass.

 

The Rover stops in front of a squat stone building that looks small compared to the towers they’ve driven by. The fat soldier grabs his arm and drags him up a short flight of stairs and Roan has to remind himself he’s playing the lost visitor so as to not cut that man’s hand off.

 

The interior of the building is brightly lit. There’s a small fence that doesn’t seem very practical for anything other than to trip someone with no reflexes whatsoever. The two guards lead him through the small fence to the room liberally filled with writing desks.

 

His jaw nearly hits the floor when he sees the sheer amount of _paper_ carelessly strewn all over the tables.

 

The Summer Palace is the only place he’s ever seen where there are scribes using paper. And even then it’s thick and uneven. He’s had in his hands a few of the pre-Praimfaya books, and the paper in them can’t compare to the one the scribes in the Summer Palace use. His hands itch to touch this paper.

 

They drag him to one of the tables and have Roan sit in a rickety chair that doesn’t seem really fit to hold a man of his weight. It groans in protest when he sits back to look around the room.

 

Roan recognizes Bellamy’s lieutenant three desks to the left, frowning at a black glowy rectangle, small reading spectacles on the tip of his nose and a wooden pen hanging from his lips.

 

“Blake!” barks the fat man when he sees Wanheda’s Natswis stepping out of a side corridor. His messy hair falls over huge black-rimmed spectacles. He’s wearing black pants, boots, and a loose shirt in much better shape than anything Roan has ever seen the young warrior ever wearing.

 

The Natswis does not roll his eyes, but his shoulders tense as he walks over. “Yes?”

 

“We found this” the fat man glares at Roan “man out in the park. Says he’s waiting for one Clarke Griffin.”

 

Roan smiles charmingly at him. The slanted eyes behind the glasses narrow. “Is that so? I don’t think we’ve met.”

 

“I am an old friend of Clarke’s” Roan offers his hand to Bellamy and the other man warily shakes it in the skaikru fashion. “We met as youngsters. I was passing through and wanted to say hi, but I got lost.”

 

“You called her?”

 

“I’m afraid I couldn’t reach her.”

 

And he hopes the two warriors are stupid enough to have forgotten he was supposedly waiting for Clarke to come pick him up in the park.

 

“And what’s your name?”

 

“Of course. My name is Roan.” The arched eyebrows around him remind him he’s supposed to have a second name in lieu of a clan name. Up here everyone is skaikru. “Roan Haihefa” he blurts out. He has no clue what the second name means. Raven’s is Reyes, which doesn’t mean anything to him. Wanheda’s is Griffin, like the mythological beast, which is as adequate as Blake is for the Natswis. But then the fox has only one name, and Bellamy’s lieutenant’s called Miller, and that makes no sense whatsoever.

 

Bellamy hums. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

 

“She hasn’t talked to you about me? I am wounded! I, on the other hand, have had the pleasure of reading quite a lot about you!” Roan plasters a smile on his face, commends himself to the High Spirits and hopes this is the same man he’s met, even if he doesn’t have any memory of the time they’ve shared. “I hope everything is well with your sister?”

 

The frown is nearly hidden behind his curly hair and the thick frame of his spectacles, but Roan sees it clearly enough. “Yes, she’s doing fine.”

 

Something buzzes and Bellamy snatches a small glowy rectangle from his pants. He checks it. “Clarke’s out front.” He tells them.

 

Roan stands up, settling the strap of his backpack over his shoulder. “Perfect. Let’s go meet her.” He bows to the two warriors. “Your help was much appreciated.”

 

Bellamy eyes him suspiciously all the way from the desk to the street. True to his word, Clarke is standing by a streetlamp, dressed in a sad excuse for a dress – how can these people prance around half naked? – and those strange contraptions that pass as shoes around skaikru.

 

He can pinpoint the exact moment she sees him because her sunny expression darkens considerably. “What are you doing here?” she snaps even before Bellamy and Roan have stopped in front of her.

 

“You know him?”

 

“Yes, he’s the method actor from Raven’s garage.” Clarke crosses her arms across her chest.

 

Roan sighs. “Please don’t turn me away, Clarke. I find myself in a bit of a predicament.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always this was unbeta'd   
> Thank you for reading and commenting


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the support and kind comments ^^

Clarke takes them to a brightly lit dining hall to talk. Everything in it looks weird: like any other dining hall, he has been to but off somehow.

For one it's - like everything else in this skaikru Citadel - very brightly lit. The walls painted a soft pastel green with pale pink accents and decorated with pictures of weird looking women in what might, possibly, be considered alluring poses.

 

Roan doesn't think they're very seductive. Yes they are big breasted and round hipped, but still, they look all wrong, with too big eyes and clad in unpractical clothing, sitting unnaturally on top of different contraptions. Some of them are pre-Praimfaya tech. The king has seen their skeletons, abandoned and repurposed, but he doesn't actually know what they are or what they do.

 

A busty server woman in a ridiculously short skirt, white button down top and an apron that must be more symbolic than practical accompanies them from the door to one of the empty tables at the back of the dining hall.

 

They walk past a counter displaying all sort of.... Roan guesses it's food of some sort. It looks squishy, colorful and as unnatural as the women painted in the pictures. Some of the tall, round stuff has been decorated with faux flowers.

 

The checkered floor doesn't groan like wooden floors tend to do, nor does it feel like stone. It's slightly sticky, softer than stone, slicker than wood.

 

The boards of the tables are made of a smooth grayish material, the legs are of smooth metal. When he slides into the booth, the pale pink upholstery of the bench turns out not to be leather or cloth, and the king decides it's most definitely not to his liking.

 

The busty woman spreads waxy paper - and how easy it must be to come by paper that they use it instead of tablecloths? - in front of the three of them and sets a small packet containing knife, spoon and a three-pronged utensil he has never seen before.

 

Clarke orders something to drink and turns to him once the girl has disappeared off through a green door behind the counter, swishing her hips exaggeratedly.

 

"So, tell us."

 

Explaining his predicament should be easier than it turns out to be: he died and went to the wrong afterlife. Yet, Clarke and Bellamy stare at him from across the table like he's deranged.

 

Roan is not a person prone to fidgeting, but their nearly open-mouthed looks make his fingers itch for something to do.

 

He plays distractedly with the three-pronged eating utensil next to the knife and spoon the busty server has brought folded inside a flimsy, nearly see-through cloth that apparently passes for a napkin among skaikru.

 

The woman reappears while the two skaikru leaders are still trying to process his easy explanation. "What can I bring you guys?" she asks with a wide smile, showing off white teeth - no wonder she smiles so easily or paints her lips in such a bright color. It's extraordinary for someone of her station, even if she's relatively young.

 

Clarke manages to pull herself together and order something for her and her knife. The servant turns to him, her smile still in place.

 

"I'll have the same as her," he says, even though he has no clue what he just ordered.

 

There's a menu scribbled on a board behind the counter - skaikru must have astounding education systems if even the lowest classes know how to write and read - but he can't understand half the words in it.

 

The woman nods her head, repeats their order to make sure she has everything right and then swishes off through a green door behind the counter.

 

"Let me see if I got this straight," grumbles the Natswis. "You come from another world?"

 

"Yes. The world of the living." Roan nods his head. Clarke and Bellamy exchange a look.

 

"And you know us?"

 

"I knew your living counterparts."

 

"So we are dead?" Clarke arches a disbelieving eyebrow.

 

"That's the only explanation I can think of."

 

It bothers him, how many people have died. Did Luna truly go through her plan of condemning all of humanity to death?

 

"How did we die?" asks Bellamy, Clarke throws him a disapproving frown.

 

"I don't know exactly how. I know only how I died: in single combat against Luna kom Floukru."

 

Another disbelieving look is exchanged between skaikru. Roan fights the urge to groan in frustration.

 

"The world was ending. We entered a conclave to decide who got to survive."

 

"How?"

 

This will only derail them from the matter at hand. "There was a bunker and thirteen clans."

 

"Couldn't you share?"

 

Roan chuckles darkly at that. "We could have. Should have, probably. But, alas, my people's ways are different from yours."

 

The waitress comes back carrying a huge tray and sets plates heaping with food in front of them. "There you go," she says, eying him in a very unsubtle manner. Roan stares right back with a smirk, and the girl turns a bright red and hurries away.

 

"Ok, so. We're all dead. How come we don't remember anything of this apocalypse?" Clarke asks, always the pragmatist.

 

"Yes, shouldn't we all have like... been born and, I don't know, live our lives?"

 

Roan shrugs.

 

"I never was one to dwell on religion," he admits. "The land of the living always held more interest for me than the land of the dead."

 

Bellamy stabs his food with the three-pronged eating utensil and shoves a bite into his mouth. Chewing carefully. The frown on his face indicating he's taking the time to think. Clarke's dipping a piece of pale bread into the bright yellow yolk of an egg. At least Roan hopes this is an egg.

 

He examines his food. It doesn't look real: Vegetables are not this crisp and brightly colored - not the edible ones, at least. The flesh smells funny and glistens red and brown. There's also something small and yellow beneath his eggs, and Roan's not sure he wants to know what that is.

 

Carefully he picks up the three-pronged utensil and touches it to the food. He tentatively stabs a small red berry and brings it to his nose.

 

It smells very faintly of oil and something that reminds him of the wild tomatoes that grow in the valleys in Ouskejon Kru territory.

 

It doesn't taste anything like the wild tomatoes that grow in Ouskejon Kru territory.

 

"Why do you remember your previous 'life?'" Bellamy's face is one of deep concentration, and Roan didn't expect it to be the Natswis the one he managed to convince first.

 

Clarke rolls her eyes.

 

"I don't know." Maybe he'll lose his memories the longer he stays in this strange afterlife? Roan hasn't lost any memories, and he doesn't remember that being part of the things Falimkepers said would happen in the afterlife.

 

Then again, he was supposed to be in the feasting halls of his forefathers, so...

 

"This is ridiculous," decides Wanheda shaking her head. But is interrupted when Roan nearly chokes on the small bit of flesh he's taken to his mouth.

 

He spits it out nearly instantly and quickly slaps Clarke's three-pronged contraption out of her hand. "Hey!"

 

"It's poisoned" he growls, sitting up and studying the place in search of the perpetrator on the attempt on their lives.

 

Both Clarke and Bellamy eye the offending utensil warily. "It tasted ok to me," she says slowly.

 

"That is not how meat is supposed to taste," he snaps.

 

"But if you're dead, why do you care if you get poisoned?"

 

He whips his head back to her, something in his neck pops loudly. She's staring unimpressed at him, but her words give him pause.

 

That could be it! The path out of this afterlife and into the right one. He can nearly hear the wind's song through the treetops.

 

Roan grins at the two skaikru, who seem to come to the same realization he has. Clarke's skin goes bone-white, Bellamy starts to rise from his seat.

 

"No. Roan..."

 

The king smiles at them. "Your assistance has been much appreciated, my friends."

 

Bellamy launches himself at him but he's even slower than he was back when he was alive and Roan's han was already on his knife. He plunges it right into his own heart.

 

It's considerably less painful than being stabbed multiple times and drowned in burning water.

> ****

Roan hears the rushing of blood in his ears hiding the screams of the people around him. Wanheda comes into view, pale face haloed by the harsh lights of this tavern. Her grim face is the last thing he sees before he's plunged into darkness once again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always this was unbeta'd 
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting

**Author's Note:**

> As always this was unbeta'd
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and commenting.


End file.
